CRIMINAL CLERIC HATE!
Hate preacher accused of radicalising 7/7 bombers now recruiting Brit jihadis for ISIS
7 JULY 2015
BY NICK SOMMERLAD , RUSSELL MYERS
Mirror
A hate preacher who accused of radicalising the 7/7 bombers is now recruiting British jihadis for Islamic State, the Mirror can reveal.
Abdullah al-Faisal, who met both suicide bomber Germaine Lindsey and his jihadi wife Samantha Lewthwaite, spent four years in jail in the UK for soliciting murder but since his release in 2007 fled to his native Jamaica.
Ten years on from the London terror attacks, al-Faisal is broadcasting almost daily online rants to thousands of followers - including many Brits.
He heaps praise on the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq and is feared to have brainwashed many impressionable young Muslims living in the West to travel there to join in jihad.
He claimed: “Some people are so sinful, after living in Dar ul-Harb (the West) for many years, the only way they can go to Paradise is for them to die on the battlefield fighting for Allah.
“When you go to the battlefield and you kill the kuffar (non-Muslims), they shall take your place in the hellfire.”
He makes no attempt to shy away from the horrific atrocities ISIS militants commit in the name of religion – and even seeks to praise and justify them.
Al-Faisal defended the horrific mass-beheadings of ISIS opponents saying: “The Muslims of Iraq have many cities to conquer.
“If they take captives, they will slow them down and resources will be wasted on them because they will have to be fed and watched over. It is cheaper to kill them and get over it. The food we have is for the mujahideen not for the Kuffaar.”
In another lecture last month, al-Faisal justified ISIS taking Yazidi women and children slaves and selling them “in the marketplace at an auction like you auction cattle”. He said: “These women are spoils of war - you don't have to marry your spoils of war to go to bed with them.
He attacked ideas like “Islamic democracy” and even claimed there was no such thing as “marital rape”: “It is not marital rape if it is done playfully. It is only rape if it is done violently.”
But he shied away from openly providing practical help to followers wanting to travel to Iraq and Syria, telling one: “I cannot help people go to the dawla (Islamic State). I am the worst person to ask this question.
“All of my communications are bugged by the kuffar, so you will get caught if I instruct you about going to the dawla. Find someone in the dawla to ask this question.”
Abdullah al-Faisal was named by former Home Secretary John Reid as a "strong influence" on the 7/7 bombers, including ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan and Germaine Lindsay. He admits meeting Lindsay and his widow Samantha Lewthwaite - the "White Widow" - but denied radicalising them.
Former Scotland Yard terror chief Peter Clarke who led the investigation which jailed Faisal told the Mirror: “He is someone who peddles this dangerous ideology which incites people to commit terrible acts of violence.
"This
shows we were absolutely right to prosecute and charge him in 2003. He
was a hate crime advocate then and he clearly still is.”
Gangster-turned-radical imam may have radicalized dozens behind bars
By Malia Zimmerman
Published June 04, 2015
FoxNews.com
A former U.S.
Marine who became a Muslim radical, gang leader and bodyguard to the
blind sheik behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing is so adept at
turning fellow prisoners into potential extreme jihadists that Florida
prison officials have kept him in shackles and in solitary confinement
for the last three years, and federal authorities want a judge to tack
on another three decades.
Marcus Dwayne
Robertson, a Muslim extremist also known as Imam Abu Taubah who once
led a murderous New York gang dubbed “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”
before resurfacing decades later as a radical imam at a Florida mosque,
has been held at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole
County, Fla. Currently imprisoned on a weapons conviction, he faces
sentencing on June 26 for a tax fraud conviction. Federal authorities
want him locked up and kept away from other inmates out of fear he will
turn them into dangerous jihadists, as he converted a number of fellow
inmates including a white supremacist.
“The United
States believes that the defendant is still an extremist, just as he
was in the early 1990s,” prosecutors said in recent court filings in
which they alleged Robertson continues to be a terrorism threat. “The
only differences are that the defendant is now focused on training
others to commit violent acts as opposed to committing them himself,
and the violent acts are to occur overseas instead of inside the United
States.”
Robertson, 46,
who served time in the 1990s for crimes related to his days as a
Brooklyn gang leader, has been imprisoned in Florida in 2011 on a gun
charge. In just one year behind bars and among the general population,
he allegedly radicalized 36 fellow inmates. Prison officials moved the
persuasive imam into solitary confinement in 2012, where he has
remained since. He faces sentencing later this month on a tax fraud
conviction that prosecutors hope will keep him in prison for more than
three decades. The U.S. attorney is using the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act to seek an enhanced sentence for Robertson.
Robertson’s
attorney wants his client, who has been held for four years, released
immediately with time served, but federal authorities are believed to
fear that, if freed, Robertson could use his Orlando-area mosque to
convince more young Muslims to go overseas and take up arms against the
west.
“He is good at selling the dream,” said one of Robertson’s former colleagues.
Robertson has
been held in a windowless cell in an otherwise empty wing of the prison
facility and kept shackled to the floor with an armed guard assigned
exclusively to him around the clock, according to a federal civil
rights lawsuit he filed against the government pro se in 2012 that was
ultimately dismissed. A person familiar with Robertson's case confirmed
the conditions and told FoxNews.com prison officials fear Robertson’s
military skills, which include special operations training, make him a
threat to escape.
A prison
spokeswoman told FoxNews.com that Robertson was put in solitary
confinement “for his own protection” and is now held there by his own
choice. But the tight security around Robertson extends outside the
prison, with at least a 7-car armed caravan of federal marshals
escorting him to his court appearances. Robertson’s attorney said his
client believes he was put in solitary confinement in retaliation for
filing a federal lawsuit against the government.
“Marcus
Robertson has never tried to radicalize anyone,” said Robertson’s
attorney Daniel Brodersen, who believes his client should be released
immediately. “He’s tried to practice his religion in prison to the best
of his ability.”
Over the last 30
years, Robertson has traveled a bizarre path that has seen him serve in
the U.S. military, lead a murderous New York gang, consort with top Al
Qaeda associates, go undercover for the FBI in Egypt, Africa and the
U.S., and ultimately end up in a federal lockup facing more than 30
years in prison. Those who know him say Robertson became disenchanted
while in the military, where he claims to have served in the elite
counter-terrorism unit Joint Special Operations Command before leaving
the service as a conscientious objector.
National
Archives records confirm Robertson’s service from May 16, 1986 to May
1994, in the U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company as a
field radio operator, but records indicate he was released from active
duty in March 1990, discharged in the rank of corporal with training in
radiotelegraph, scuba diving, marksmanship, parachuting, terrorism
counteraction, surveillance, infantry patrolling and finance.
In early 1991,
Robertson joined with other former Muslim security guards to form a
robbery gang they called the ‘Forty Thieves’ with Robertson as the
leader known as "Ali Baba."
They robbed more
than 10 banks, private homes and post offices at gunpoint, shot three
police officers, and attacked one cop after he was injured by a
homemade pipe bomb.
Robertson also
served as a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, nicknamed the “Blind
Sheik,” who was part of the extremist Islamic group accused of the 1993
bombing of the World Trade Center. Government records claim Robertson
donated more than $300,000 in stolen funds to mosques he attended.
After he was
arrested in 1991 along with most of the other members of the Forty
Thieves gang, Robertson cut a deal with prosecutors, serving just four
years in prison while others remain behind bars.
Part of the pact
involved Robertson going undercover for the FBI to document terrorists’
plans and networks in Africa, Egypt and the United States.
According to a
source familiar with Robertson’s history, Robertson was thrown out of
the program in Feb. 8, 2007 after he attacked his CIA handler in Africa.
Robertson
quickly reinvented himself, founding the Orlando-based Fundamental
Islamic Knowledge Seminary in 2008 and taking his Muslim name. He
traveled the world, teaching at universities, including some in the
United States. Videos of his lectures show him preaching against gays,
“devil worshipers,” non-Muslims and such American pop culture icons as
cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, who he says is “gay.”
Under Islamic
law, the Brooklyn-born Robertson married two women, Zulaika and Itisha
Wills. Between them, and children he fathered outside these marriages,
Robertson has 15 children. Through his teachings, videos and social
media, he recruited an extensive network of followers in Florida and
New York, an estimated 150 who reportedly are a concern for federal law
enforcement.
Robertson was
arrested on a firearms charge in 2011 and pleaded guilty in January,
2012. Just two months later, federal authorities charged him in with
conspiring to defraud the IRS. Through wiretaps, the federal government
documented interactions between Robertson and one of his student,
Jonathan Paul Jimenez, who Robertson allegedly instructed to file false
tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania,
Northwest Africa, for study and violent jihadist training.
Jimenez, who
reportedly knew Robertson for 11 years and, by his own admission,
trained with the imam for a year in preparation for his travel to
Mauritania, where he would study and further his training in killing,
suicide bombing, and identifying and murdering U.S. military personnel,
pleaded guilty Aug. 28, 2012, to making a false statement to a federal
agency in a matter involving international terrorism and conspiring to
defraud the IRS, and was sentenced April 18, 2013, to 10 years in
federal prison.
While Robertson
has been awaiting sentencing in the tax fraud charge, prosecutors have
built a case against him for enhanced sentencing, alleging he’s
involved with terrorism activities.
Robertson denies sending Jimenez overseas "to commit violent jihad.”
“The prosecution
is attempting to characterize me as a ‘Teacher of Terrorists.’ … They
are attempting to twist my statements to fit into a terrorist plot," he
said in a statement that appeared on his website. In reality, they know
I am not a terrorist teacher.”